Treasure Hunt by Andrea Camilleri Read Free Book Online

that?”
    “Got it.”
    “Then, inside a dumpster we find another identical pot, with the exact same characteristics: the missing left handle, the dent, the two holes, and so on. Does it seem possible to you that the two pots, though used by two different women and likely with different frequency, could deteriorate in exactly the same way?”
    “Impossible.”
    “And yet these two dolls appear to have succeeded at doing just that. And that’s my point. Have a good look at them.”
    “I have, and I can’t figure it out.”
    “Do you know what the only possible explanation is?”
    “You tell me.”
    “With the first doll, Palmisano’s doll, the aging process, so to speak, took place naturally, through the wear and tear of use and the passage of time. With the second, the one found in the bin, the damage was created artificially.”
    “Are you joking?”
    “Not in the least. Someone who owned a doll exactly like Palmisano’s, but much better preserved, saw the images broadcast by TeleVigàta, recorded them, and used them as a guide to reproduce the exact same damage on his doll.”
    “How can you possibly know that?”
    “You can clearly see that the eye of the dumpster doll was removed with a clean cut, from a blade, whereas on Palmisano’s doll the rubber around the missing eye came apart on its own, causing the eyeball to fall out. On top of this, the holes in the dumpster doll were made with an awl, so that if you examine them with a magnifying glass, you can see they’re all the same. Whereas on the other doll, each hole is totally different from the others; one is bigger, another one is slightly smaller . . .”
    “But why would anyone waste all that time doing something so pointless?”
    “Maybe there is a point to it. Actually, there must be a point to it. We just don’t know what it is.”

4
    They went back to studying the dolls. Montalbano then asked:
    “Do you know anything about these kinds of dolls?”
    “I’ve never had any need of them,” Mimì said, slightly miffed.
    “I don’t doubt that for even a millisecond. Your prowess as cock of the walk has never been called into question and never will be, I suspect. I simply wanted to know if you could give me a little information.”
    Augello thought about this for a moment.
    “I once saw a documentary on some TV station I pick up with the satellite dish. These two dolls here are antiquated, primitive models, really. Nowadays they make them out of different materials, such as foam rubber, so they’re not inflatable anymore, and they look like real women. It’s a little spooky.”
    “So what period would you say these two are from?”
    “I dunno, maybe about thirty years ago.”
    “Tommaseo this morning asked me where they were sold, and I said I had no idea. Do you?”
    “Well, over the Internet . . .”
    “Forget the Internet. I’m talking about these two. You can tell Tommaseo about the Internet, since it’s clear he wants to buy one. But where could you buy these things thirty years ago?”
    “Well, they certainly weren’t making them in Italy. Bear in mind that before they’re inflated they don’t take up much space. I’m sure they were mailed from abroad in parcels so that you couldn’t tell from the outside what was inside, and they probably wrote something like ‘garments’ or suchlike on it. And to order them you only had to know the address.”
    “So therefore, about thirty years ago, two different people in Vigàta—Gregorio Palmisano and some unknown—supposedly ordered, at more or less the same time, two identical dolls.”
    “So it would seem.”
    “Then, thirty years later, the unknown man happens to see Palmisano’s doll on TV and makes it so that his doll looks in every way like Palmisano’s.”
    “Fine, Salvo, but we keep coming back to the same question: Why did he do it?”
    “And why did he get rid of it by throwing it into the dumpster?” the inspector added.
    They sat there in